title: Respiratory changes during reading in Mandarin-speaking adolescents with prelingual hearing impairment.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Most people with severe to profound hearing impairment (SHI) exhibit speech breathing changes, but little is known about the breath group (BG) structure for this population. The purposes of this study were to investigate, compared to speakers with normal hearing, if Mandarin-speaking adolescents with prelingual SHI take inspirations more often at syntactically inappropriate positions and exhibit a difference in the temporal BG characteristics.
  
  
  METHODS
  Forty participants, 20 speakers with prelingual SHI and 20 normal-hearing controls matched for age, sex and education level were recruited. While wearing a circumferentially vented mask connected to a pneumotachograph, the subjects read three passages. The airflow signal was used to locate inspiratory loci in the speech samples. Temporal parameters of BG structure were derived from the acoustic signal.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The SHI group, compared to the control group, had significantly (1) more inspiratory loci at inappropriate and minor syntactic boundaries; (2) fewer syllables per BG, slower speaking rate, longer inter-BG pauses, and longer noninspiratory pauses, but comparable inspiratory duration, expiration duration, and BG duration.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The slower speaking rate within BGs and longer inter-BG pauses mainly account for the respiratory changes in Mandarin-speaking adolescents with prelingual SHI.
authors.affiliation: School of Dentistry, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC.
authors.forename: Wei-Chun
authors.initials: WC
authors.lastname: Che
authors.forename: Yu-Tsai
authors.initials: YT
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Hsiu-Jung
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Jordan R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Green
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D030141:Feedback, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006319:Hearing Loss, Sensorineural / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D001239:Inhalation; D008297:Male; D011932:Reading; D013064:Speech Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D013624:Taiwan; D055815:Young Adult